Wow, not being allowed to present your own first author paper is pretty bad - unless someone else contributed a lot of the work and was made second author + presented?
Advisor had family in Europe (I am in US), and would use these conferences to create extended family vacation plans.
Of course when I think back on this I am still pissed! But years have passed and I am doing well in my career. I am able to not get too fixated on it.
And yes, I agree with the people saying it was terrible and very wrong. In terms of all the possible terrible and very wrong things that can happen to a graduate student this is maybe, in the grand scheme of things, about mid-range maybe?